Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. vetoes election integrity bills

Far left Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed a series of election integrity bills Tuesday sent to his desk by the republican controlled legislature. The bill which passed with all republicans in support and all democrats against the security measures.

Democrats are saying the security measures are not necessary. “This is a pile of bills built on conspiracy theories and lies,” said Democratic Rep. Lisa Subeck, of Madison. And that somehow these measures to ensure the safety and security of our elections are somehow an attempt to perpetuate the lie that Trump actually won and are meant to disenfranchise voter groups that tend to back Democrats.

Republicans defended the bills as taking steps to ensure that elections are fair. One of the bills would require people voting absentee to show voter ID to prove that they are who they say in order to ensure a fair election. As well has they would have to apply every year to get an absentee ballot rather than automatically sending them. Which is what we saw (the automatic mailing) during the 2020 election especially in democratic states nation wide.

Another passed bill would prohibit local elections officials from filling out missing voter information on the absentee ballot certificate, which also serves as the envelope that voters use to return ballots. To ensure people could not wrongly fill out a paper in favor of a candidate.

Since 5,500 absentee ballots in Democratic-heavy Dane and Milwaukee counties, where election clerks filled in missing address information on certification envelopes.

Clerks had been filling in missing information on the certification envelopes for a dozen elections prior to November’s. Republicans have questioned the legality of the practice since state law doesn’t specifically allow it.

Under the bill, any absentee ballot missing information would be returned to the voter to fix. Officials who fill in the missing information would be committing election fraud, which is punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and three years in prison.

A third bill the Assembly passed would disallow ballot collection events any earlier than two weeks before an election. There could only be one collection site for absentee ballots and it would have to be located near the local clerk’s office and staffed by workers from those offices. Republicans said this is to “secure chain of custody” and “Prevent ballot harvesting”

Another passed bill would make it a felony for an employee of a nursing home or other care facility to coerce an occupant to apply for, or not apply for, an absentee ballot. It would also require the nursing home to provide notice to relatives when special voting deputies planned to be on hand to assist residents with casting their ballots. To ensure residents have time and are not forced into voting for a candidate they don’t want to vote for.

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